The power of an art erases all the ugliness of human mistakes and errors, and enhances the sublime value of beauty. the acme of value of art is reinforced by human talent and elegant performance of human activities. Right before the publishing of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, English economist John S. Mills inventing the title communism, declared the necessity of promoting art and culture in order to sustain the capitalistic system and communism., which were never mentioned in the Wealth of Nations and in the capital theory of Karl Marx Communist Manifesto. New York Times columnist David Brooks listed a few points in his article on March 5, 2023 with respect to the power of art.
- Beauty impels us to pay a certain kind of attention. It startles you and prompts you to cast off the self-centered tendency to always imposing your opinions on things. It prompts you to stop in your tracks, take a breath and open your self up so that you can receive what it is offering. Often with a kind of childlike awe and reverence. It trains you t see the world in a more patient, just and humble way. You see the world through the eyes of another, often a person who see more deeply than you do. Virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is. When you look up the ceiling of the Cistine chapel, Florence, Italy, ” The Creation of the World and the Fall of Man” painted by Michelangelo at age 90 taking 10 year hard work. When you walk around Rome’s Colosseum, Vatican City, which Emperor Augustus and Constantine built, When you look paintings ;Piccasso’s Guerica and Garden at Saint Addresse by Renoire, when you look at paintings in the Uffizi museum, Florence, such as “The elder Adam and eve” by Lukas, “The Venus of Urbino” by Titan, “Adoration of the Magi” by Davinci, your emotional repertoires from artworks are widened.
When you read a poem or see a piece of sculpture, you ‘ve had a new experience. “The David” by Michelangelo in Florence. When you read Ode by William Wordsworth “Rainbow comes and goes, and lovely is the rose’ The sunshine is a glorious birth. Feel the gladness of the May, of Splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower. We grieve not, rather find strength”. The film The Light of grass took its title of movie from the ode of Wordsworth “Splendor in the Grass”. “Blowing in the Wind” by Bob Dilan, a Nobel Price Winner in English literature, he never gives us answer.
“The Arrow of the Song” composed by Henry Longfellow, in which an arrow shot into the air, not where, long afterward, it was found in an oak, hometown, still unbroke.
An another poem by Walt Whitman “I sing the Body Electric” magnificently described the beauty of woman body. It lives with the mind of human being forever and with Hubert Hojae Lee who commented it in New York Times on singing, passion, love, beauty, sex and Emotion. We are educated by a poem “The Road not Taken”, by Robert Frost and learned how to make different our world by taking a less traveled road as Frost proved. When we revisit the La Fenice Theater, Venice to appreciate the original opera ” La Traviata” by Verdi that was first performed in 1861, We feel that we are in a fantasy world.
The listener to Mozart’s Jupiter symphony is presented with the open flood gates of human joy and creativity; “Summer Midnight Dream by Mendelssohn invokes an inspiration, romance, imagination and widens our spectrum of Nature and its beauty, as was the case of scientist Albert Einstein.
The book “Celestine Prophesy” leads us into history and deep contemplation in the valley of Inca Sky City, Macchu Picchu, Peru.
When Shakespere illustrated our life in such way “Life is but a walking shadow” we are led into a world of sad and empty space.
reading poems, books, listening classic musics, appreciating master piece of dynamic paintings in the museum will lead us into through the enchanted world of childhood and made us to understand the uncanny prophesy of our later griefs, which those days of jay contain.
These experiences furnish us with a mind of emotional knowledge: how to feel and how to express feelings, how to sympathize with some one who is grieving, how to share the satisfaction of a parent who has seen her child grow.
Now we safely can say this is the power of art in a political and technological age today.
Dr.Hubert Hojae Lee
Commissioner of Human Rights, Orange County
chairman Korean American Foundation (https://kafusany.com)